Tue January 10, 2012

Yahoo To Show Original Animated Sci-Fi Series

Our last word in business also comes to us from the Consumer Electronics Show. And the word is "Electric City." That's the name of a new animated science-fiction series created by - and starring - Tom Hanks. It's being promoted at the Vegas show in part because it will be airing - or rather it will be shown - on the Internet site Yahoo this spring.

Entertainment trade publication Variety reports that the project's actually been in the works for eight years. It's Yahoo's first effort at original scripted programming. Yahoo's already had a reality show, an advice show, as well as news bulletins.

With "Electric City," Yahoo is banking on some positive attention and extra ad revenues. The series is made up of 20 interactive cartoon episodes, each three or four minutes long. It's set in a post-apocalyptic world that is utopian on the surface but under the surface something else. According to one Yahoo executive, it is secrets and heavy-handed state control.

All right. That's the business news here on MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm David Greene. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.